Say Anything
by sorrow and bleus
Summary: Audrey, Chris's beautiful object of affection, still has a place in her heart for him. Their relationship ended badly, and they haven't spoken since, but when a dare from the Cobras goes badly, Chris goes to any length to save her.
1. A Smile Like Armor

_.:__A/N: This is my second Stand By Me fic. In case you didn't get it from the summary, it's basically about Chris & this girl Audrey, who used to go out, but things ended pretty badly and then the worst comes to worst, etc. Since my last Stand By Me fic kind of failed in epic proportions (you can still read it, it's called Survivor's Guilt), I'd really appreciate some R&Rs here. _

_lovelovelove, Julianna__:._

**Audrey~**

I wear a smile like it's armor.

And I know he's faking it, too. He acts nonchalant when we pass each other in the halls, as if we never hunted out those moments between classes together. As if we never held hands in the halls between our classes, but I know that he's trying to avoid the haunted thoughts just like I am.

I know that he, like me, averts his gaze in an exaggerated way and shifts his whole body so that there's no chance that we might touch each other, as if we have never touched.

And most of the time, I'm damn good at pretending. Seems I've had to go through my whole life doing it.

We had a silver gate at the front of our house, excuse me, _mansion_. We had six sleek black cars in our driveway, next to the underground garage that we never used. We had stables out back and green lawns that stretched for acres.

My mother was a beautiful supermodel, the only redhead that graced the runway of New York Fashion Week, when she was twenty-one years old. My father was a Harvard-educated lawyer who owned his own firm. His parents had been just as rich as we were.

Our eleven-bedroom, fourteen-and-a-half-bath, brick-with-ivy, marble-encrusted mansion stood on a hill in the prestigious Castle View, a community of the wealthy and privileged located between Castle Rock and Portland.

It started in elementary school, when I had to deal with every single girl there telling me how lucky I was because I had a big beautiful house and expensive cars and, most importantly, _ponies._ I had to pretend that their words meant anything to me. Which they didn't.

Of course, they didn't hardly know me, but I was expected to be grateful. I was expected to keep my poise. I was expected to grow up and fall in love with a man with stature like my father's. It was predicted that I would be his Homecoming, and later Prom Queen, and we would marry each other, have beautiful children, and live happily ever after.

My lip sneers as I even think of this possibility and I realize for the first time that what initially attracted me to Chris Chambers was not his deep blue eyes, or his blonde peaks of hair, or the muscles that flexed under his Hanes t-shirt when he moved. No, these were the things that I noticed after I registered the fact that my parents would never go for him.

So that meant, I _had_ to have him. For me, I had never been "in love" in the perfect way that Scarlett O'Hara misled all the girls of my age on the screen. I had never met anyone that I would _die for_. I resented anyone who would say such a thing.

After it happened, I kept a cool, marble exterior that never let on to how many battles were raging on inside of me. I couldn't let myself be honest, even for a second, because it would nearly kill me to acknowledge the feelings.

And like I said, I did a damn good job of keeping up that façade. The only time that I let myself slip, not on purpose, was right before sleep, when I had nothing to distract me. I had no choice but to think of him then, because he was always on my mind.

So it was nothing unusual when I woke up on a gusty November day that promised rain, stretched out of bed and put him out of my mind.

School was the same old shit, the same as it was everyday. The halls reeked of chlorine from the pool and cedar from the woodshop classes. My brand-new violet ballet flats squeaked on the linoleum as I surveyed the faces all around me.

People's eyes would dart around my face, taking in my shimmering eyeliner and carefully styled hair. They would quickly scan my body, looking at my outfit, and being sure to take a mental note of it.

That particular morning I wore flared dark-wash blue jeans and a simple, purple button-down shirt to match my shoes. The outfit looked streamlined and simple, yet classy.

I would catch each of their eyes, as if reprimanding them for staring. Though I wouldn't change my facial expression, wrinkle my pug nose or something like that, my eyes would always be hard as ice.

I ran my fingers through my amber-colored hair, enjoying the scrape of my newly-manicured nails along my scalp as I amble up to my locker and begin to fiddle with the lock.

My best friend Colleen danced up to me and slinked a thin arm around my waist. She flicked her strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder with a swift flick of the head and kissed me on both cheeks. "Audrey," she says.

I returned the gesture. "Hey, Colleen."

She leaned up against the lockers next to mine while I got my books out and cradled them in my arms. "Have a good weekend?" she asked.

"Pretty good," I responded. "Got my nails done, finally. How was yours?"

She rolled her eyes back in her head. "Boring. Still grounded. But I'll probably sneak out this Friday night for the party."

I smiled naughtily. "Excited?"

"Yes!" she squeaked. "Everyone's gonna be there. It'll be boss."

Chris Chambers walked by and Colleen gave him a nasty stare, but he didn't even look our way. I re-focused my gaze by becoming intensely interested in the magnetic mirror on my locker door.

"Umm, Audrey? You listening?" asked Colleen tentatively.

"Yep," I chirped. "You were talking about Ace."

She sighed dreamily. "Yeah. Isn't he just gorgeous?"

I gave her a look. "Sure he is," I say. "For a thug."

Colleen exhaled, exasperated. "You're just jealous of his beautiful light blond hair, and sky blue eyes, and bulging muscles."

I snorted. "You sound like a bad soap opera."

I shut my locker door with a pang and we walked together to our homeroom. When we get there, the teacher is sitting at her desk, legs crossed, reading a paperback novel. We slunk into the back row and continued to talk.

I reclined in my chair, resting my arms behind my head. "God, I can't wait for Thanksgiving break."

"Same," says Colleen.

Slowly people filter into the classroom, each of them looking at me diagnostically when they walk in. I seemed to have that affect on people; their eyes would go to me automatically, as if they were storing up images of me for later on, when they would allow themselves to dream of the life they wished they led.

Or so I thought back then, before I knew that I was no one that deserved anybody's envy.

I remember the night it happened, even after all these years. Even though it's been so long, and at some point I fooled myself into believing that the effects of what happened back then couldn't bother me anymore, couldn't cause me to ache in my bones, the sting of it all hasn't died down and the bruise hasn't turned yellow and faded.

Time heals all wounds? That isn't true. Time adds to the fire.

It was cold and January. I was in detention and in my fingers I clutched the raggedy lined paper that he'd slipped into my hands before pulling me into an embrace and kissing my cheek.

I'd smiled at him and kissed him back. It wasn't until later that I remembered the shifting of his gaze, and the way that there had been some sort of real blockage in his eyes.

As I trudged into the classroom where detention was held, and plopped down in a chair, I made sure nobody was reading over my shoulder before unfolding the paper in my hands.

There weren't a lot of words written there.

_It's over,_ it said. And, _I'm sorry. Chris._

I stared at it for a very long time before it actually sank in, before I realized it was real. I couldn't feel anything at first. Couldn't feel my heart's slow descent into my stomach as I looked at the page again.

_I have to get out of here,_ I thought. I stuck a hand into the air, senselessly.

"May I go to the bathroom?" I asked the teacher. I flashed him a quick and shining smile.

He nodded reluctantly and I picked up my bag. He eyed me suspiciously, but I gave him another, trustworthy smile and walked out slowly, so as not to be suspect.

When I got to the hallway I sprinted quickly down the length of it before reaching the glass doors. I push them open with force and look around wildly for any sign of Chris's white t-shirt or faded jeans.

I spotted him, becoming smaller and smaller in the distance on his way home. Since my house was in the opposite room, I dropped my bag, planning on coming back for it.

Then I ran, with all my strength, the air stinging my eyes until I reached him.

That night when I got home, I trudged up to my bedroom and closed the door. I padded across the plushy shag carpet over to the bedside table with my cream-colored princess phone on it and picked it up.

I listened to the dial tone for a minute, contemplating calling Colleen or Sophie or Emma or any of my other friends and letting myself break down. I let the phone drop back onto the receiver. In less than three minutes, my entire life, my whole world had crashed all around me.

At first, luckily, I felt nothing at all. I walked into the bathroom, felt the cold tile against my feet, peeled of my clothes and sank into the porcelain tub filled with scalding hot water.

As with any trauma, you don't feel anything immediately after because you are in shock. And that is how it was then, and how it will always be. I don't remember crying that day. I don't remember feeling the razorblade pain in my chest after it happened.

I was, for whatever reason, withheld from feeling the worst of it, buoyed by the sheer fact that I couldn't believe it had even happened in the first place. And that is, perhaps, one of the greatest gifts we are given.

Except, of course, for the next few days when everything becomes real, the Novocain wears off, and you must feel every subtle little burn and acidic pulse as you realize that you aren't having a nightmare. That you won't wake up.


	2. A Resounding Goodbye

**~Author's Note:**

**Big thanks to cherryflavour for the review. It's really appreciated. **

**Please continue to R&R. Enjoyyy, lovers.**

**lovelovelove,**

**Julianna.~**

**Chris~**

It was cold when I got up that blustery Monday. When I strode out of the house, thankful that my dad was asleep in a drunken stupor on the couch, I wrapped my jacket around me tight and braced myself from the chill.

It is on days like these that I remember how it happened on January 21 last year, when my heart was ripped out of my chest. Of course, I wasn't acted upon. It was me who caused it, all of it. My life ended in the folding of a little piece of paper, the kiss of fingers, and the sound of a resounding goodbye.

The night before had been rough; Dad was drinking really heavy and shooting up lines (a great new habit he'd acquired) and the combination put him into an even crazier rampage than usual.

I don't remember where my mother was that night, but neither of my brothers were home as usual. I tried to stay out of Dad's way by closing myself into my bedroom and doing homework.

But when the crashing reached my ears, I knew I was in for it. Again. I tried to concentrate on my work, but it was no use.

I studied the page that I was trying to read, but I ended up just staring at words on the page without actually reading them, and my pencil twirled around in my fingers as I grew increasingly nervous.

The sounds of Dad nearing my room were drawing closer and closer, each bang and crash closer me than the last. At some point, my breath caught in my throat and my chest swelled. When it really came down to it, I wasn't scared of my father. I dreaded his approach, sure, but I wasn't terrorized.

After all, what's the worst he could do? What's the worst that would happen if he went too far this time? If this time a bruise swelled and my brain gave a cerebral pulse and I hit my head on the way down and never woke up? I wasn't afraid to die.

Then, as if in answer to my question, a picture popped into my head. It was like a perfect photograph, bettered by my sweet memory of the girl. Her hair is casually swinging over her shoulder. She is laughing in this little photograph of my mind. Audrey.

As my dad's footsteps resounded nearer in the hallway, I made a decision that made my head swim, even then. A conclusion that made me hate myself even more.

I swung the door open to face my father, and didn't put up a fight; it was useless. Tomorrow, my life would be over anyway.

**Audrey~**

At the end of the day, I found myself cross-legged on the floor, leafing through an old photo album. I slowly fingered the ones that caused a little pang in my chest and set them aside.

When I finally snapped the book shut, there was a pile of photographs lying next to me. I leaned back against the bed and sighed as I pick them up.

I stacked them in my hands, their pointy corners poking my fingers painfully. This, however, is nothing compared to what I feel by looking at them.

The first; Chris. Taken by me, a candid shot. There is a faraway look in his eyes as he looks out at the world.

The second; me and Chris. It was taken by Colleen, when she happened upon us one day at lunch and said that we were "just too cute to not take a picture of."

We had both laughed shyly and he scooted closer to me at the table as I leaned into him. At that point, we hadn't been dating long, and we both looked nervous.

I tossed them aside, unable to look at them anymore. They scattered on the floor and I stood up with a heave. It was one of those terrible nights common in teenage suburbia, when there is nothing satisfactory to do.

You could cross your bedroom a thousand times, afraid to touch anything that might remind you of whatever you're hiding from. Everything is done that needed to get done; even work can't distract your hands.

I wanted so badly to pick up the phone and hear his voice, even if I had to hang up right afterwards. But I just wrapped my arms around me, as if I was cold, and looked down at the floor at all those beautiful photographs, in all their sepia glory.

I remember tossing myself onto the bed and flinging out an arm to finger the telephone. I picked it up and, again, listened to the dial tone.

With trembling fingers, I dialed Chris's number slowly. I didn't know what I was going to do if someone answered.

"I'm sorry," said the tinny recorded voice. "But this number has been disconnected."

I heard a sharp ringing and slammed the phone back onto the dock.

_What were you thinking!?_ I demanded of myself.

It wasn't kosher for me to be talking to Chris at all. All my friends despised him; after all, to most of Castle View, and Castle Rock, he was just one of those low-life Chambers kids.

His best friend was Gordon LaChance, and even though Gordie and I were never even close to being friends, I remember how Chris would always say that Gordie was the best friend he had ever had.

He wove me stories of the summer before seventh grade, and I would remember myself back then, and listen to the slow lilt of his voice that had lulled me into a stupor.

I never really fell in love with Chris Chambers in the normal way. For me, it was a more tragic sort of downhill rush. It started out that I craved his company and the commiseration of his voice and eyes when they looked at me like I was the only one there.

Then it turned into that I would replay our moments together over and over. One thing that I have never forgotten is him turning the corner and his eyes locking on mine as a huge grin spread over his face.

That was one thing that bothered me for a really long time. That always popped up on the many sleepless nights I awoke to think of him.

Slowly, it turned to a deep need of him somewhere inside my bone marrow. He was carved into me, and I worried about him constantly, a deep sigh in my chest as if I was trying to dig up the bones of love.

I felt worthless because I knew that he was hurting every night at home but yet his eternal smile and immortal words never faded or lost their ethereal and almost magical quality.

I wanted to save him, help him, but he didn't let on that he was in any pain at all. He ripped into me and invaded an essential part of my core, he was like the sinew that held me together and I just couldn't let alone the thought of what I would do if something happened to him.

It was simple: I couldn't live without him. And it was almost sick the way that I needed him.

It wasn't until just recently that I understood that he knew this full well and that was why he had to break my heart.

**Chris~**

I trudged all the way to school, distracted by my memories. When I reached the front of the building, I saw Gordie standing there waiting for me.

"What are you doing, man?" I asked him when I got there.

"Freezing my nuts off," he said. "Come on."

We walked inside where it wasn't much warmer. The school was pretty cheap.

We saunter down the hallway in our usual swagger, talking briefly about our weekends (my dad beat the shit out of me, his ignored him.)

I don't look at Audrey when I pass her locker.

"Hey, man," said Gordie. "So, you goin' to that party this Friday? Heard it's gonna be pretty hot."

"You going?"

He shrugged. "Yeah. I might."

I cocked an eyebrow at him. "You, LaChance? When have you ever wanted to go to one of those parties?"

In all the two years I'd known him, he had never even brought up his own social scene. We just didn't talk about it.

He shrugged again. "Okay, so I might have over heard someone talking."

"Who?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"You know who," he said as he buried his head in his locker, looking for something.

I didn't say anything at first, just looked down at my dirty shoes on the even dirtier floor.

"So what?" I say in a tense voice.

"So, she's gonna be there," he said. "And you should, you know…"

"What?" I said angrily, my temper flaring at his suggestion.

He turned to me shortly. "Look, man. You never got the chance to say bye to her, you know? It ended really fast."

"I know that, man, I did it." We started walking. It was hard for me to talk about that sort of shit. "It won't ever work. I mean, you know that."

He didn't look over at me the whole time we were talking. I always appreciated this out of Gordie: the fact that he didn't let other people know that we were having a serious conversation.

"Think what you want, Chris. But you shoulda seen her face. Sincerely, I think she still wants you."

I looked away uncomfortably. "Whatever, man. I can't be with her."

"Why not, dude? And don't say that whole dumb thing about something happening to you cause it's all bull."

"Is not," I said. "Seriously, man, what if something happened to me and I died or something? If she doesn't care about me anymore then I can't hurt her like that."

Gordie shook his head. "Just cause you aren't as close as you used to be doesn't mean shit. It doesn't mean that she'll stop caring about you, even if she wanted to. Some stuff just doesn't change."

I looked at the floor again. "It's better this way. It'll be better in the long run," I corrected myself.

"Chris. Man." He gave me a serious look. "You still care about her right?"

"Yeah," I said defensively.

"Then what makes you think she doesn't still care about you?"

"Ah, what do you know anyways?" I snapped at him. "I don't wanna talk about it."

He didn't say anything else, and we sat in silence in homeroom that morning. Slowly, guilt started trickling into me and I started to feel really bad about talking to him like that.

"Hey, I'm sorry, man." I said gently as we walked to first period. "I just lost control of my temper, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," he said. "No worries, man."

"Hey, thanks, Gordie. You're a real guy."

He grinned at me. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"That you're not a pussy."

"Who said I was?"

"Only every girl you've ever—"

"Don't even go there, man," he said defensively, but he was smiling.

The rest of the week went by in a blur of papers and tests and awful school lunches and the slamming of locker doors. By the time Friday rolled around, Gordie had finally convinced me to go to that party.

We agreed, though, that I wasn't going to talk to Audrey. I was going because I needed to talk to other girls, to "expand your horizons," as Gordie said. I hit him for that stupid comment and he cackled.

"Seriously, though. You need some new prey. Something to work for."

"Now I know how come you never got laid, LaChance," I said, snorting.

"Whatever, man," he said. "You'll thank me for this later."

And that I would.


	3. Blinded

**~Author's Note: **

**Cherryflavour: thanks so much! I REALLY appreciate it. **

**Please R&R and enjoy!**

**lovelovelove, Julianna.~**

**Audrey~**

It was a long week, but worth the wait to see a smile again. I don't know what that is supposed to mean exactly, but it was true then, and it is true now, in some strange little way.

Anyway, I waited all week for Friday night, the night which Colleen had been talking about ceaselessly. She was coming to my house after school, me having dissuaded her from sneaking out.

She told her parents she was spending the night, which she was. And I told my parents that _her_ parents were cool with the party, which they weren't. So really, only one of us was lying, and that made it sort of okay, right?

As the last class ticked down to its final seconds, the excitement of it all bubbled in our stomachs like so much caffeine, naturally made purely by thought. We grinned at each other when the bell finally rang, cutting through the mundane school week, freeing us from the prison cells that we'd made in our minds.

On our way out, we waved to the many girls and guys that milled around the building, idling around until they had to go home or get picked up. Some waved at me and asked if I was going tonight. I said of course I was, and waved back glamorously.

I almost didn't see Gordie, leaning on the side of the brick building, looking serious. I met his eyes momentarily and his, solemn, brown, followed me. He didn't say anything but I knew that he was watching, and more than that, I knew that he was seeing.

"What a creep," Colleen muttered under her breath when we were out of earshot of him.

I didn't respond, pretending to be busy with the lock on my car door. I popped the door open and we slung our bags into the backseat. I slid into the driver's seat and started the ignition. The car hummed to life as Colleen slammed her door.

I scanned the radio as I waited for it to heat up.

"Picture yourself on a boat on the river…," it twined reedily.

"With tangerine trees and marmalade skies," Colleen sang.

I put the car into gear and pushed on the accelerator with my toe. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I looked up briefly and noticed that Gordie wasn't there anymore. I guess I imagined that he would always be there watching me, not only suspiciously or in representation of Chris. But protectively, almost, shielding me from dwelling too long.

Three hours later, as Colleen and I pulled up to the party in my car, music blasted, muffled from the speakers inside. I locked the car and we walked up to the door. Letting ourselves inside, we padded across the shag carpeting in our shoes and ambled over to the drinks.

We each pulled a Coors from the cooler and popped open the tab. I took a swig, it sparkled as it went down. I limited myself to this one beer, determined not to lose control. There was dull lighting in the room as we surveyed it over the cigarette smoke.

Music played loudly in our ears, but it silenced for a split second as a figure walked in front of our eyes. It was Chris, and he was dressed simply; just a white shirt and blue jeans, the outfit that I always pictured him in.

I looked away and I felt an arm winding around my waist. I looked up into a pair of hooded brown eyes. They belonged to a tall, broad guy in a black t-shirt, jeans, and industrial black boots.

"Hey there, beautiful," he leaned down and whispered in my ear. I threw all caution to the wind, figuring that this might help me forget, for just one second longer than I would be able to do on my own.

I looked at his face, scruffy, and tried to make a connection. I tried really hard to dig deep down inside him and pull out something that was even comparable to Chris. I looked over my shoulder to tell Colleen that we had to part ways, but she was already gone, chatting up Ace Merrill.

I tried not to look disgusted as I turned back to the boy. He was still looking at me, a ridiculous smile pasted on his unshaven face. I smiled back tenaciously.

"You got a name?" I asked him, shouting over the loud music. The room was totally full of warm bodies.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked down at me. "Johnny," he said.

"Audrey," I said and he smiled a lopsided, snaggle-toothed smile.

_He's almost cute_, I thought, and then mentally stabbed myself. How could I say such a thing? Does that mean that I'm abandoning—

"You wanna go somewhere more…quiet?" he asked me and my stomach turned. I hadn't even thought about another guy in that way in months.

"Sure," I said and he got himself a beer from the cooler. He guided me with a hand on my back and we walked down the hall and into a smaller room. It was filled with smoke and an earthy smell. Pot.

There were a group of teenagers sitting in a circle, passing a joint between their fingers. Johnny walked in all natural and sat next to one of the guys. He gave Johnny a bloodshot look and passed him the smoking joint.

I sat down next to Johnny, curling my feet underneath me and waited my turn. The joint passed through his fingers and into mine. I took a puff off of it and passed it to my right. Right away, my eyes started to feel warm and my teeth, for some reason, felt smoother.

A giggle formed in my stomach in a lovely way and my body was warm. My thoughts began to relax, and immediately turned to _him_. I forced the thoughts away lazily, like a half-asleep drunk man forces away his headache, putting it off until morning.

I don't know how long Johnny and I sat there in that circle until he picked me up with an easy flex of his arm under mine. I let him lead me to the other room, a bedroom, vacated. I had officially lost control of myself as he pulled me on the bed.

I remember his skin and flesh and the warmness of his calloused hands on my body. As his tongue kissed my teeth awkwardly, I slurred, "You're drunk."

He laughed at me. "Shut up," he said.

I tried to get up but he wouldn't let me. Then, for some reason, Ace Merrill walked in. I tried to see if Colleen was with him but she wasn't. Johnny forced himself on me and I think I might have dazed away to a better time and place where I could be alone with my thoughts.

Ace was over me when I woke up. His face was sweating but his eyes were clear, mean, patient. His every movement rocked my body uncomfortably. When he was finished with me, I tried to get off the bed and onto my feet but Ace held me down with one hand.

"Going so soon?" he muttered calmly, not relinquishing his grip.

Johnny pulled me from the bed and my body lolled in his arms. I don't know what they did to me; I've had beer before, and pot, and the combination, but I have never lost total control of my limbs like that, like I was a doll.

My hair fell onto my face, blocking my eyesight. the combination of blindness and collapsibility, utter lack of control, was killing me. A knot formed in my chest as I tried hopelessly to hold my ground and stay rooted to the spot.

Ace and Johnny laughed and pulled me out of the room and into the night air. My fingers were shaking and cold and there was sweat on my forehead. I gave up fighting, resigning myself to the doom that surely awaited me.

I was shoved onto the rough carpet of a car, or truck or van. My eyes seemed to be disengaged. I lay in the back of the vehicle (I think it was a van) and was helplessly surrendered to rolling around violently at each turn that it made.

My head was knocked around me and I took shallow, ragged breaths. When they pulled me out of the van, finally, after a hellishly long ride, I was surrounded by trees and darkness. The night sky pressed in on my eyelids, blinding me even more, terrorizing and torturing me. I was thrown to the ground violently and gasped horribly as the wind was knocked out of me.

As a kid, I had never fallen down or off my bike and hit the ground so hard that I couldn't breathe. It just wasn't something that ever happened to me; my parents never let it. So you can understand, reader, why it was so terrible that I couldn't breathe.

I felt sure I was going to die, to surrender to death as easily as if it were Chris's hands guiding me.

I swallowed back the sickness that rose in my throat as I was forced down on my back, an evil pair of eyes staring into mine, wide with terror.

I gulped, trying to hold back the bile. My fingers shook, cold, even though it was steamy and warm outside. I looked up into the trees, which were doomingly dark and tears stung at my eyes as I realized that this was the last thing I would see before I died.

I rolled over onto my side, my stomach muscles clenching, and vomited violently onto the pine needles. I groaned and my head pounded painfully.

"Ugh," said Johnny in disgust. "Ace, look what this bitch did."

Ace examined me. "She's okay. But roll her on her side so she don't choke," he instructed Johnny. "And then tie her and we'll go."

I was barely conscious as I was rolled onto my side and my hands were yanked behind me and tied to the sticky pine tree with rough rope. I closed my eyes and tried to picture Chris. If he were here, he would comfort me, hold me in his arms, tell me it was all alright…

But, he wasn't there. And it wasn't alright, not at all.


	4. Night

**Chris~**

I remember the first time I met her. It was June, the last day of school, and there was an excitement somewhere in the atmosphere. We all sat through our exams and then, finally, blessedly, they let us out. I didn't really have any plans that summer and I was already sick of hearing about the vacations everyone was going to go on.

Moving through the hallway, pressing through the flood of bodies, I tried to get myself an exit. She was caught under her friends' arms in a giant hug, their tanned bodies surrounding hers, her curls splayed around her as she giggled and tried to escape them. I didn't pay her much attention; sure, she was beautiful, but when had beautiful girls ever even spoken a word to me?

I know what you're thinking: about that whole bad-boy image, the kind of guy that stands leaning up against a building, his hair scruffy, face unshaven, and cigarette dropping ash on the gray sidewalk around him. That romantic idea that girls like: a guy riding off on a motorcycle, his black boots menacing against the swift sheen of the bike and her clutching him around the waist, fitting her head in between his shoulder blades.

But that isn't me. So imagine my surprise, when I'm just walking along the hallway, watching my dirty shoes scuffing the linoleum and I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turned and there I was, face to face with Audrey. She was even prettier up close, her eyes bright, little lines around her mouth where her dimples were when she smiled.

"You dropped this," she said, and handed me a black spiral notebook.

"Thanks," I said, never looking away from her.

She nodded and turned to leave, a sweet smell wafting into my face from her hair as she flaunted away.

**Audrey~**

It was dark, and it was freezing. I have heard that right before you freeze to death, you become warm, comfortably warm, so warm that you don't want to wake up. You just let the night steal you away, and slip into the comfort of fictional warmth.

But I wasn't warm, so I guess I wasn't close to dying, but I felt like it. Every single nerve in my body was awake now, and I was more alert than I had been all night. My cells stood on end in protest, willing me to go somewhere warm. I tried briefly to struggle out of the ropes, but it was to no avail.

I could see nothing now, except the floor of the forest. I laid on my side, pine needles in my hair and pressing against my face. I tried aimlessly to sleep, but I was much to cold and scared, every little noise of the woods made me jump painfully.

I can't tell you the number of times I thought I heard footsteps, crunching leaves, doom. Wind stirred the leaves around me and they crackled menacingly. My muscles were tense and shivering, hardening like marble. I imagine that my face was bluish and my lips were purple.

I don't know how I made it through that night. I may have fallen asleep at some point, or maybe I just lay there until dawn came, evading death somehow. Either way, light shone in between the trees, bringing daylight. The sky, from what I could see, was streaking with purple and orange.

It would have been pretty under other circumstances. Still unable to use my hands, I curled myself into a little ball and waited to die.

By the time day broke fully, there were little fragments of sunlight leaking through the tree branches, and when they would chance to flitter across my skin I felt a little bit of warmth and the shadow of hope.

My head pounded. My abdomen ached. My mouth was unbearably dry. I groaned miserably, wishing that I would just die already.

As if this little noise had called someone to me, I heard the leaves crunching under somebody's feet, this time for real, and a body came into view. I closed my eyes, not really wanting to know who it was or what they wanted with me and hoping if it was someone terrible, they'd just think I was dead and leave me.

Through a sliver in my eyelids I saw a pair of black industrial boots and a pair of tight, faded blue jeans over top them. I tried to catch a glimpse of a face, but I couldn't.

Next thing I knew, my hands were freed with a small grunt from whoever it was and I rolled (we were on an incline). Using my hands to steady myself, I tried to stand but I was too exhausted from the cold and the sleepless night.

I breathed heavily and then remembered the guy that had released me. I looked at him and with a jolt I recognized him; it was Eyeball Chambers.

As much as Chris resents his brother, and for good reason, I won't deny that they look alike. So at first, when I saw Eyeball, my delusional brain which had been deprived of sleep and had spent a night in the woods alone, jumped to inane conclusions.

My heart beat harder and my head pounded. I surveyed him, my chest rising and falling steadily. We examined each other like predator scrutinizes prey, both looking wildly animalistic at the other, ready to fight or lunge at any moment.

It hurt to look at him like this, knowing that he was so like his brother, yet so unlike him at the same time. Little flittering shadows across his face gave the unmistakable resemblance of Chris, but no, it wasn't him—he would never come to find me, save me, much as I wanted him to. An aching beat in my chest when I thought about how close Eyeball could have been to Chris just that past night. Maybe their thin plaster walls kept them apart, but nonetheless, as Eyeball lay in his bed the past night, Chris was just a hoarse voice's call away, lying in his own bed. I imagined him there, and it gave me some comfort. Maybe he looked up at the ceiling at night, the dingy, water-stained ceiling, the bedsprings creaking underneath his muscle-lined back. Maybe there, at his most vulnerable, when he had nothing else to consider, maybe then I crossed his mind.

Eyeball gruffly pulled me off of the ground, my head lolling weakly like a ragdoll's. He examined me, his dead eyes burning into my face like acid: harsh, judgmental, seething through my features and burning me under its harsh gaze. Did I just see a flicker of sympathy cross his face or was I just imagining it?

"Let go," I said weakly, trying pathetically to pull my thin arm out of his calloused grip.

"Come on," he grunted and pulled me by the upper arm again, my feeble attempt at escape like a wisp of smoke in the wind. The fallen leaves crunched underneath my sneakers as I hurriedly tried to keep up with his long man-ish strides. He was walking too quickly, and my knees buckled. I fell headfirst into the earth, dirt compacting underneath my fingernails as I tried to brace my fall. My forehead landed in some hard soil. Immediately, I scrambled to pick myself up again.

My muscles shook with the exertion that it took to get up off of the ground. My face was broke out in a cold sweat and a fresh batch of chills rose up and down my spine as I shivered in the cold, bitter air. My face, hands, and skin were streaked with dirt and mud, and there was earth caked on my clothes, shoes and hair. I was desperate to be strong, to prove to him that he had not, could not break me.

Panting, I was bent over, knees slightly bend, still trying to stand upright. My body was still weak from cold and hunger. In one swift motion, I saw Eyeball's arms near my body and I began to flinch until I realized that his muscular forearms were underneath my knees and my body was drawn close to his chest.

I looked up at him, surprised and frightened of what he was about to do to me, thinking that he was outraged that I couldn't keep up. But instead of fury drawn across his face, I found a blank coolness. I felt one of his arms beneath the bend in my knees and the other one was beneath my back. His hard muscles dug into my body.

My face curled into his T-shirt and, much as I hated him, I must admit that the warmth coming from his chest was of the utmost comfort right then. For the moment, I could forget that I was about to be taken who-knows-where, and that I was in the arms of one of the foulest, meanest people I had ever had the displeasure of making my acquaintance. I could forget then, that this was Chris's tormenter, and not Chris himself; could allow myself to be wrapped up in him, smelling the laundry-detergent and sweet skin-smell of his shirt, and pretend, for one blessed minute that Chris had come for me.

Love is the invention of fiction writers.

**Chris~**

When I got back home, the whole house was dark except for the silent flickering of the television set in the living room. My footsteps didn't make a sound as they stepped onto the dirty orange carpet that lined the halls.

Through the bluish light of the TV set, I could see my father slumped in an armchair, his chin lolling onto the front of his shirt, a white beater. There was an empty (I assumed) can of beer still clutched in his brutish, fat hand and his guttural snores filled the small dingy room. I crept past him, though there was no need for quietness: he was in such a stupor, I judged from the empty bottle of Johnnie Walker lying on its side on the floor, that he would not be a threat until noon the next day—when he would start his vicious drinking cycle over again.

I tiptoed into the kitchen anyway, taking in the dusty grey linoleum floor and the countertops strewn with a variety of dishes, dirty and otherwise. Sighing, I turned to proceed down the hallway to my room when I felt a small hand wrap around my own.

Startled, I looked down to find my three-year old sister staring up at me, her large brown eyes widened with fear.

"Chris," she said in her small voice, pulling my fingers in the direction of the hallway. Her tiny body was clothed only in a diaper and a white t-shirt. The bottoms of her miniature feet were dirty, surely from playing all day long inside the house, both of our parents too drunk to do anything but feed and change her.

Bending down, I picked her up, with one arm supporting her small body. A small brown curl drifted into her face, and with my other hand I swept it from her eyes.

"What's wrong, Lucy?" I asked her, walking down the hallway toward her bedroom. She buried her face in my neck as we got closer and I gently extracted it, looking at her seriously. I repeated the question patiently.

She shook her head, shutting her eyes with terror as we neared her bedroom. "Did you have a bad dream?" I asked her and she sobbed dryly into my shirt.

"Shh," I said soothingly, rubbing a small circle on her tiny backside. "It's okay."

She hiccupped. "I didn't have a bad dream," she said, her lip pouting. "It's mommy."

"What?" I asked, trying not to alarm her. We were stopped in front of her bedroom door. I could hear the other two sleeping, small wisps of breath floating down the hallway and into my ears. I was frozen in the doorway, not wanting to go inside and see that my mother had finally succumbed to the alcohol and it was my baby sister that had found her. "What's mommy doing?"

Lucy burrowed her face into me again. I sighed and hugged her closer to my chest as I swallowed and walked into the bedroom.

Our mother was sprawled on the floor, in a position that would have been comical had it not been the middle of my night, and had I not been sixteen years old, standing in the middle of the room with my baby sister on my hip and my smaller siblings sleeping away in their cribs in the same room.

I examined my mother with disdain. She was breathing. Stepping over her collapsed form, I set my sister in her crib, and pulled the bars up. I felt bad, like I was making her a prisoner.

"How'd you get out of your crib?" I asked her, stroking the side of her face and smoothing the runaway curls on the top of her head.

She was the picture of beauty: soft, ivory skin surrounded by chocolatey brown ringlets, her small body rocking with imbalance as she tried to stand in her crib on her own. She gripped the top of the bars for steadiness, her fat little fingers curling around the worn wood.

"Like this," she grinned toothily, and impish smile spreading across her chubby face. In a deft movement, she reached down and with a small bang the bars on the front of her crib fell, allowing her her freedom.

I smiled at her and placed the bars again where they belonged. "Stay here tonight," I said to her gently, leaning over to kiss the top of her head. She squatted and then laid down, inviting me to tuck her covers around her.

"What if I have a nightmare?" Lucy asked fearfully, a tear in her babyish voice. "What about mommy?"

"If you have a nightmare, come get me," I said soothingly, pulling the blankets over her small frame. She closed her eyes. "Mommy's just sleeping. She's very tired."

"Why?" she asked, opening her eyes again.

"Well," I sighed. "She was busy today."

"Oh," Lucy said, sticking her thumb into her mouth and sucking happily. "Goodnight, Chris," she lisped as I turned.

"Night, Luce."

"Love you," she said, her voice drifting slightly as she fell into a deep and innocent child's sleep.

"I love you, too," I murmured and I turned to check the others' cribs. I replaced their blankets where they'd fallen off and then turned to the mass of human body that was my mother lying in the middle of the floor.

Straining myself slightly, I bent my knees as I put my arm underneath hers and pulled her to her feet. Her body was like a doll's, and as she was lifted into my arms, she stirred slightly. She looked at me drunkenly, the mist of alcohol glazing her eyes. She stank of the drink.

"Come on," I said quietly. The trip down the hall to her and Dad's bedroom was a long one as I had to support both of our weights. I laid her on her bed, and once she was lying down her body gave a great sigh and she fell back to sleep.

Finally, at long last, I ducked into my small bedroom. There was a mattress on the floor, and a small accumulation of my minimal belongings in the corner opposite it. There was no bed, just the mattress, lying directly on the dirty carpet. A small window above this was the only other decoration.

The moon lit up the sky and a hundred thousand stars surrounded it, worshipping its glowing glory. How ironic, I thought, that all of the stars flock to the moon. The moon is nothing but a big rock in the sky, a big, damaged, holey rock floating in the atmosphere. It doesn't glow on its own; no, the only reason that it gives off light is because the sun, out of view, feeds it with this shine and blush, and allows it to take credit for its own beauty.


End file.
